Since the break-up of the Soviet Union, the Central Asian states have been undergoing a dynamic reorientation process full of conflicts, in which the rediscovery of religious roots also plays an important part. There have been frequent endeavours to create and recreate history and to instrumentalise it for political purposes. The sometimes violent attempts to establish nations in this multi-ethnic region should be seen against this background.

The Back Room stands for opening borders. Cultures unfamiliar with one another come together, communicating their traditional rhythms, their forms of song and lyrics, and their instruments, always displaying a willingness to change and to develop a new language in an exchange with others.

The way we deal with language and cultural differences (in the broader sense) in the multicultural societies of Europe has become an important practical issue, especially for pedagogical work. Above all, acquainting children and young people with non-European cultures through artistic works has given them a marked, positive incentive to become more actively concerned with the opportunities and problems facing multiethnic societies.

Through their connection with so-called "Islamistic" fundamentalists the terrorist attacks of the 11th September 2001 have thrust Islam into the limelight, ideologising this religion and stylising it into a monolithic unit that welds the entire Muslim world together in a conspiratorial community, just exactly as the terrorists would have it. In contrast, the programme of the House of World Cultures is intended as a topical contribution to a differentiated perception of Islamic positions, debates and currents, which are all part of an internal Islamic dialogue, an internal pluralisation of the Islamic world.

How do we want to live together with people from other cultures? How do we envisage our future? In a culture moulded by national identity or in a movement between the cultures that takes up the challenge of international changes? And what does it mean in practice: to face up to this challenge? IN TRANSIT is an experimental field for this practice. Curators from Asia, Africa and Latin America will be drafting new perspectives for the arts. With the Lab, the New Conversations, we will be opening a forum - in close co-operation with intellectuals and artists - reflecting the structures of transcultural practice and organising new ones. Transformation as a cultural, artistic and social resource for new blueprints for life.

Popdeurope is the new summer music festival at the House of World Cultures. It aims to provide a platform presenting the musical diversity of Europes pop cultures and showing their relationship to musical traditions and developments in other continents. Popdeurope looks at Europe, and from there at the world.

Popdeurope wants to show the changes our concept of pop undergoes each year. The festival broadens the customary framework of the pop festival as a casually organised series of live concerts to include workshops, films, lectures, discussions and work with children.

Whether it is modern, avant-garde or popular ? contemporary Mexican art is incredibly exciting. You not only feel this when you are in Mexican dance halls and techno clubs, but also when you are confronted with Mexican popular art and experience the international art scene in Mexico City. The MEXartes-berlin.de Festival is the first major cross-genre Mexico festival to be held in Europe.

Being a central cultural event, the festival in autumn 2002 will be held in the German capital, Berlin. It is being organised by three Berlin institutions that are already intensively occupied with Mexico: the House of World Cultures, the Ibero-American Institute and the Ethnological Museum.

The prize-winners and most interesting films of the most recent "Festival du Cinéma et de la Télévision de Ouagadougou" will be shown in November in the House of World Cultures, along with contemporary African productions including a film series with a special focus on "South Africa".